The Bulbous Balinese Pig:
From Secular Sausages to Sacred Offerings. Part 4
Bali’s best-loved food--babi guling--owes its romantic (and religious) reputation to the long cooking process required and to the convoluted, doting family care of the livestock. It routinely appears on the menu as a festive food for such important childhood ritual occasions as the ground-touching ceremony at three months of age (and the otonan at1 year of age). The ground-touching ceremony celebrates and marks the first time that a baby is allowed to come in contact with the ground. This well-attended—and mandatory--ceremony is carried out to protect the baby from disease and danger. A small suckling pig is always ordered for this happy, auspicious occasion—settled on a solid tray and judiciously wrapped up in young coconut leaves. The crisp, golden yellow skin glistens and the persuasive, carnal aroma of sweet roast pork seduces the nostrils. New Balinese mothers are not allowed to eat certain foods, such as suckling pig, after the birth of their babies--this celebration also signals the end of this post-partum prohibition and taboo period.
Bewitching, beguiling, and to the manor born (located across from the Ubud Royal Palace on Jl. Suweta) Ibu Oka’s Warung produces the best babu guling on the island of the gods. Crowded to the rafters whenever it is open, ravenous, carnivorous guests typically “pig out” on the leaf-lined pork smorgasbord basket: sliced roast pork nestled under a giant square piece of cracklng hard, crispy pork skin, pork sausage, steamed white rice, and lawar (a mixture of shredded vegetables, coconut, chillies, spices, and congealed pig’s blood to impart a red-brown ceremonial color). The babi guling here is famous for its particularly succulent, tender, flavorful lean meat: the pigs are brought down the hill every morning, slowly spit-roasted to ecstasy over a wood fire—and pamper-basted with coconut oil. (I fed a Rp.30,000 takeout portion of Ibu Oka’s babi guling to my beautiful Balinese dog, Chessie—who went into a doggie-sniffing, lip-smacking, iconic pork trance!) Other Balinese residents insist that the best suckling pig recipe on the island is prepared by the chefs of Gianyar village. The cherished, waiting, vacant, porcine abdominal cavity is stuffed with an internal orgy of roots, herbs, and spices: chopped, crushed, sliced, and shredded shallots, garlic, ginger, turmeric, galangal, pepper, coriander, candlenuts, chillies, lemon grass, and whole cassava leaves. The cassava leaves spread the spices evenly while the pig is being slowly roasted. The outside of the pig’s body is rubbed with turmeric juice to make the final skin color a shiny, golden yellow-brown. It is then impaled on a long wooden pole and hand-turned (guling) rotisserie-like over an open, burning fire of dried coconut or corn husks and wood for two to three hours depending on the size of the pig. Babi guling is mostly served at feasts, but it is increasingly being made in commercial kitchens for sale at special, local street food stalls and night markets in the larger villages. A famous, family-run, be guling stall in Gianyar attracts a constant stream of Balinese customers to its heaping, individual pork platters: cut into small portions, the babi guling is paired with sayur nangka (jackfruit), pork lawar, cooked blood, Balinese urap, saté, legendary urutan sausages, and steamed rice.
Highly seasoned fried (till brown) or steamed Balinese pork sausages (urutan celeng—also known as urutan babi--and celeng oret) are made of pork meat mixed with spice paste (bumbu), conveniently encased in the roast pig’s reserved, tubular intestines. This meaty mélange of pig flesh, stomach, intestines, and bumbu is initially diced into small bits: the Balinese then construct a hand-held funnel carved out of bamboo, and use a coconut leaf spine as a tube to easily squeeze the daging (meat) babi into the intestinal casing. The nascent, stuffed urutan is then placed outside in the sun to dry for approximately two days: when ready for cooking, it is fried (rare or well-done until red or brown). These thick, fat, full-blooded Balinese pork sausages--curled and coiled-up like Polish kielbasa—are usually served with Balinese rice wine. Often sliced into easily edible, small round sausage pieces, aromatic urutan are always found at Balinese food stalls that sell whole roast pig (the deceased pig’s trophy head is usually displayed on the warung babi guling counter with a black tongue and its mouth and teeth wide open). Urutan is served with nasi putih and various kinds of raw sambal matah: sambal lemu with salt and green chilli pepper, or grilled terasi with coconut oil. Be celeng menyatnyat is a pork casserole combined with heady, substantial Balinese urutan. Oret, a different, black-colored, fresh blood sausage, is made of pig heart and blood (no flour added).
Other swine specialties like babi kecap also capture the exciting flare and flavor of Bali: a popular pork creation with a spicy sauce, this luxurious pork stew is always eaten during the great Balinese festivals of Nyepi and Galungan. Be celeng base manis (pork in sweet soy sauce) is simmered, flavorful pork cubes smothered in sweet and salty soy sauces, ginger, chillies, shallots, garlic, and chicken stock; it often appears on festive occasions when a whole pig is slaughtered and plenty of meat is available. Balung nangka (another integral element in festival cuisine) is braised pork ribs with young jackfruit or papaya cooked with the pork still on the bone: the flavor is enhanced with lemon grass, salam leaves, ginger, red chillies, and spice paste. In an economy of scarcity, the Balinese are necessarily very thrifty and practical when it comes to food. To ensure that no part of the pig goes to waste, they utilize the knuckles to create kikil celeng mekuah (pork knuckles in spicy sauce). Balinese food stands in busy, night market eat-streets like Teuku Umar in Denpasar specialize in lawar, ayam betutu, very popular pork saté (saté babi manis is a Balinese favorite), and the renowned babi guling.
Pork is also used to build elaborate, blessed, cyclical temple offerings. The Balinese are gifted, natural artists—they engage and sculpt their food as they carve their temples—as a form of divine creation—as a prayer. For a temple anniversary celebration (odalan), a massive, pagoda-shaped statue made from fried pork and shiny, glistening pork fat will stand near the central shrine. It takes pride of place along side other opulently constructed, food-based offering structures dedicated to the gods. A striking, spiky bouquet arrangement of all-pork saté sticks is commonly produced as a cremation ceremony offering (pork skin, pork liver, pork saté lembat, bacon, and pork meat). Visually arresting saté isi is another Balinese food masterpiece. This saté triad consists of three alternating pieces of pork: pork meat alone, pork meat with skin in the center, and pork meat solo—configured as three alternating balls or chunks threaded along a saté stick. The Balinese make these for ceremonies, weddings, toothfilings (for family, guests, and neighbors) and for personal eating.
Ed. Note; This is the last in the series of Food of The Gods. We wish to thank Dr. Kruger for sharing her wonderous knowledge with us.
